Ticking off the events ... my son had a secret santa exchange in journalism class and needed to come up with something for a 15 y.o. boy by Friday. The clues? The recipient liked 'tech, food, quirky' things. The spending limit was $10 but the essence of the gift was to be HANDMADE. So my son came up with the idea of a brownie or cookie or fudge in the shape of an iPhone (he would use frosting to put the logo and buttons on). Okaaaaaay.

Guess who would make the basic shape? Me. And the frosting. Me. How was I going to fit this in the schedule? When was he going to have time to draw the logo? It turned out he requested fudge; that was a happy choice. There was ONE can of sweetened condensed milk left in the pantry! And a bag of house brand (low cost) chocolate chips. WHEW! I made that super easy type of fudge in the hour between coming home from work and going to exercise class.

Later that evening I made the frosting more quickly than I thought it would take (must be all that practice doing gingerbread houses for the last 2 weeks), and he got to work on the logo. Here's the results:



The best part is he is pleased, not an easy thing to accomplish with a teen boy (who like most teen boys are in the thickest anti-mother phase of their lives). We had a very happy no stress time working together.

Please I'm hoping!! If that only will happen with the next thing on the TO DO: my daughter giving a gift to her figure skate coach and her friend next door.

I texted two days ago to my daughter to 'think of what she wants to give her coach and schedule a time to shop that we can both do'. Why did I TEXT? She has been really reactive lately, being defensive and very hard to work with. Texting is a more calm way of getting her thinking. OY

We will be with her coach in one day, and her friend two days later. There is very little time free before these get togethers.

And she hasn't made a reply. No surprise there. Wish me the patience of a saint